


Road to El Dorado

by Alyndra



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Cuddle Pile, Multi, OT3, POV Steve Harrington, Post-Season/Series 02, Road Trips
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-13
Updated: 2020-01-13
Packaged: 2021-02-27 05:49:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,264
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22242118
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Alyndra/pseuds/Alyndra
Summary: Steve’s going on a road trip. Except then Jonathan wants to come with. And then Nancy wants to come with. And then it rains.
Relationships: Jonathan Byers/Steve Harrington/Nancy Wheeler
Comments: 9
Kudos: 66
Collections: Holly Poly 2019





	Road to El Dorado

**Author's Note:**

  * For [CloudAtlas](https://archiveofourown.org/users/CloudAtlas/gifts).



> I hope you like this AU-before-season-3 roadtripping pile of fluff!

Steve was leaving this town. Not for good (probably), but at least for a few weeks. Summer roadtrip after graduating high school—that was a classic, right? Enough with the creepy monsters trying to eat his friends already. Just him and his BMW, cruising down the highways of America, footloose and free. 

Free as long as asshole drivers didn’t pull up behind him in his own driveway, blocking him in. He looked up, scowling, to see who it was, and Jonathan hopped out, waving. Steve sighed. Jonathan wasn’t actually an asshole. He was dating Steve’s ex-girlfriend, and Steve couldn’t even hate him. That floppy hair hid someone brave and surprisingly...well, Nancy was in love with him, and that pretty well said it all. 

“Hey, Steve,” Jonathan said. “Looks like you’re packing.”

“Yeah,” Steve scraped up a smile. “I’m leaving this morning. Summer road trip, right?”

“Sounds like a blast,” Jonathan said. “Can I come?”

Steve stared at him. “What? Why? You and Nancy…” He stopped. Why would Jonathan want to drive all over the country with Steve when he could stay home in Hawkins, mutually in love with Nancy?

“Nancy said she’d be really busy this summer, with her internship. She wanted me to work there too, but it wasn’t a ‘good fit,’” Jonathan explained, with finger quotes and one of those wry twists of the mouth he did. “Mom’s in smothering mode, but nothing’s actively trying to eat anyone in Hawkins, and I’m tired of photographing all the same old landscapes around here.” He took a breath and looked straight at Steve. “Can I come?”

It wasn’t like Steve had been looking forward to being by himself, exactly, he just hadn’t seen any better options. He had half-formed ideas of meeting chicks on the road—chicks always loved his car—but he _liked_ Jonathan, despite the perpetual slouch of his shoulders. “Okay,” he said. What the hell. “Do you need to grab a bag?”

Jonathan blew out the breath he’d been holding. “Yeah, that’d be good. Can you give me twenty minutes at my house?”

“Sounds good,” Steve said. “I’m all set here, I’ll follow you over.”

* * *

Back when they were just starting to date, Nancy had loved Steve’s car, too, of course…but she was with Jonathan now. Steve couldn’t imagine wanting to go on this roadtrip if she’d still been dating _him._ Was Jonathan not as into her as he should be? It seemed impossible. It wasn’t any of Steve’s business, though. Not anymore. 

Steve was trying so hard to wish them the best, and not to think about how great life had been when Nancy was with him. Finally Jonathan came out of his house, backpack slung over his shoulder. “I’ll be fine, Mom!” he yelled over his shoulder. 

“Call every day, please?” Joyce followed him out the door. 

“If I can find payphones,” Jonathan promised. He opened the door of Steve’s car to get in, but then paused, staring out at the road. 

Of course. Perfect. The Wheelers’ car drove up and Nancy and Will piled out, beelining for Jonathan. Mrs. Byer must have called over so that Will could say goodbye to his brother. And of course Nancy would want to…

“Steve Harrington! I cannot believe you!” She marched over to his door and opened it. “You were seriously going to just take off— _with_ my boyfriend, mind you—and not even say goodbye?”

Steve accepted that he was not going to be driving away immediately and got out so he could at least look her in the eye. “I don’t know why he wants to come, you should really talk to him about that…”

She hit him in the shoulder. “He wants to come because he likes you, you idiot! And I like you too, so you shouldn’t just leave without telling us!”

“Oh,” Steve was gaping a little bit. “I didn’t think...okay, well, I’m leaving, Nancy. For the summer. So...goodbye.” He threw a look over at Jonathan to see if he was going to help, but Jonathan was wrapped tight in a hug with Will and just threw him an absent smile. He didn’t seem to think there was anything to be concerned about, with his girlfriend standing three inches from Steve. Maybe because of how she was yelling at him. 

“You think that’s it? I’m just going to sit around while my boyfriend and my ex-boyfriend drive off together to have adventures without me?” She poked him hard in the chest. “That is not how this works, bucko.”

“What do you want me to do, Nance? Cancel the trip?” Steve’s heart ached. All he’d wanted was for Nancy to be happy, but if she couldn’t be happy with him he wanted to be anywhere but here. “Am I not allowed to go anywhere because we used to be a thing? Or do you want me to tell Jonathan he can’t come?”

“I want…” She paused, looked at Jonathan too, hesitated. Had he made her realize there wasn’t anything left to say between them after all?

No. She took a deep breath and carried on. “I want you to make space in that car for me to come too, that’s what I want you to do.”

Jonathan had freed himself from his mom and brother and came to lean on the car, looking over it at them. “What about your internship?”

She made a sharp chopping motion with her hand. “I talked to one of the girls who worked there before, she said they’re all perfectly beastly. And anyway, I...you’re who I care about, both of you, and I’d be miserable. If you went off and left me here. So please, don’t?”

Steve’s problem was he’d never been able to say no to Nancy Wheeler. “All right. If you can pack in fifteen minutes. I’m not waiting all day!” He would wait as long as it took, of course, but a guy had to save face a little. 

He got back in his car as she whooped in delight, grinning a little. Jonathan got in beside him as she ran for her parents’ car. Maybe it wouldn’t be such a bad summer, after all.

* * *

It was only as Nancy swung into the backseat, somehow on time with an entire suitcase, and he pulled away from her house that second thoughts set in. What was he, what were any of them thinking? He was still in love with Nancy, but she didn’t love him, if she ever had. She loved Jonathan—and Jonathan loved her, so it should be perfect for them and just heartbreak for him, right? Except, then why had Jonathan wanted to come with Steve in the first place? 

“Where to, first?” Nancy sat up in the backseat, looking bright and excited. 

Jonathan shrugged; he’d never asked, of course. 

Steve turned onto the town’s main crossroad, heading for the highway. The houses and fields dropped away faster as he sped up. “Where do you want to go?”

“You mean you don’t have a plan already?” Nancy asked, incredulous. 

Steve shrugged. “Figured on driving till I hit a body of water too big to put a bridge over. Whether that’s north to Lake Michigan, east to the Atlantic, south to the Gulf, or west to the Pacific, we can take a vote. All in favor of seeing an ocean?”

“Aye!”

“Aye!”

They burst out laughing, signs for the highway visible in the distance. All those signs pointed to a pretty good summer, Steve could only hope.

* * *

They slept out under the stars the first night, and the second, and the third it rained and they got out the family tent Nancy had managed to throw into her suitcase. But by the time they managed to get all the strings and poles and stakes sorted out and in the proper places to hold the tent up, they were pretty drenched and then they got in and realized the tent wasn’t just wet from being set up in the rain, it was actively leaking. At that point Steve said fuck it, and they rolled the whole mess into the trunk and drove into town to find a motel. 

Only by the time they got there, it was late and the only rooms left were singles, so they got one with a king bed. As long as it had hot showers...they were all shivering despite the heat in the car cranked up as high as it went. 

Steve and Jonathan hauled the bags in while Nancy went to find somebody to ask for extra towels. The room was clean and seemed huge with the giant bed set in the middle. Steve looked at it wistfully—the right thing to do here was clearly to volunteer to sleep on the floor so Nancy and Jonathan could have the bed—and called, “Dibs on first shower!”

Only when he was naked and in the fantastically spacious shower stall, enjoying the hot water streaming over his body for the first time in three days, the door to the bathroom opened and Jonathan walked in and started stripping out of his wet clothes. Then he grabbed all of his clothes and all of Steve’s and shoved them out the door at Nancy, who traded some folded towels in and yelled something about laundry in a rapidly fading voice. 

Well, it wasn’t like Steve had been planning to put that stuff back on, but...

“You going to take all day in there, Harrison?” Jonathan asked, teasing. “Because if I have to get one of these things dirty just to dry myself off _before_ I shower…”

“Yeah, whatever, why don’t you just invite yourself right into the shower with me, too, if you’re that impatient?”

“Don’t mind if I do,” Jonathan said promptly, and then the stall door was opening and they were staring into each other’s eyes. Jonathan smiled a little, ducking his head, but Steve could tell when someone was checking him out, and…oh. 

Oh. _Jonathan was into him,_ Steve realized suddenly, like a truck running into into him. Had been for maybe this whole time, certainly since before he and Nancy had broken up, maybe even...seriously, who lurked in another guy’s bushes to sneak photos of him and his girlfriend getting it on? His first thought had been _creeper_ and it was only after Steve stumbled in on him and Nancy trying to fight the first nightmare monster from the Upside Down that Steve had to rethink everything in a different light. 

Well, now he was rethinking it all, all over again, and while he was just standing there, Jonathan nudged his shoulder over so Steve would stop taking up the whole spray, and he shifted automatically and watched as Jonathan started to soak up the heat, his shoulders finally untensing. 

Steve was mostly done anyway. He left Jonathan to it and grabbed one of the fresh towels on the way out. 

Nancy was shivering outside of the bathroom doors, and as soon as he came out she went in. Steve blinked. Of course. She and Jonathan were together, there was no reason they shouldn’t share a shower. 

He dried off, and put on boxers and a t-shirt, which he didn’t always bother with. Jonathan’s naked body kept playing behind his eyelids whenever his mind drifted. The guy had a body, for all he usually hid it with baggy clothes and that habitual shoulder slump. Unbidden, a whole series of images of him with Nancy started to generate themselves in his head. 

He groaned and flopped down on the bed. The room didn’t have a couch or even an easy chair, just the hard desk chair, so he was going to be on the floor with whatever bedding hadn’t gotten soaking wet in their attempt at tent camping. He thought about going out to the car in the rain and digging through the trunk for the sleeping bags and foam pads, and then he stared at the ceiling and didn’t go anywhere. 

Jonathan came out of the shower, wrapped in a towel, practically glowing. Steve carefully didn’t watch as he traded the towel for boxers and a t-shirt, just like Steve’s, and then got out Nancy’s pajamas and handed them in the bathroom door to her. The water had stopped running. 

Then Jonathan came over and lay down next to Steve, still without saying anything. The bed was more than big enough for them both to lie there without touching, and still leave room for Nancy on Steve’s other side. Why had he chosen to take up the middle of the bed?

But if he moved away to the other side now, Jonathan might take it personally...so then Steve still hadn’t moved by the time Nancy came out, looking gorgeous as ever even with her hair wet. She smiled at them, and as Steve started to roll over to leave the bed, she came over and lay down next to him. 

“You don’t have to leave unless you want to,” she said. “You’re welcome to stay here with us.”

Okay. Steve lay back, as Nancy cuddled up to his side and Jonathan slung an arm across him to hold her hand. This was...this was something, and probably they should sit up and talk about what, specifically, it was, but right now? Right now, Steve felt way too good to move. “I’m glad you guys decided to come with,” he said. “Even if you’re crazy.”

“We can all be crazy together,” Nancy said.


End file.
